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Category: Random Thoughts On The Quran

We all know that seeking forgiveness of Allah (Istighfar) is a huge gateway to relief by having our prayers answered, and the chief prayer for forgiveness is Sayyidul Istighfar. (For details about benefits of Istighfar or know more about Sayyidul Istighfar virtues please refer to scholarly sources.)

I have been reciting this prayer for a while, and over the time I have realised that this prayer has taught me about forgiveness what no one or nothing else taught before. Whenever I have to forgiveness, this prayer sums up everything I feel like telling Allah ( I am someone who always has to speak to Allah in my own words, otherwise I feel incomplete). But this is the only prayer which does that job for me. So I thought I will share how it speaks to me, perhaps it might benefit those who are looking to have their prayers answered. It might add little more sincerity to your prayer, so forgiveness becomes more of a conversation than a plain chant or chain of thoughts about how ” sinful you are”. (The words in Italics are basically what I mean when I recite the respective lines in Bold).

O Allah, You are my Lord, none has the right to be worshiped except You,You created me and I am Your servant

” Oh Allah, you know how I am, because You created me. You created my mind, my brain cells ( our chain of thoughts come from brain cells firing them), my personality, my weaknesses. There is nothing about me or my evils of my lower sinister self that are hidden to you, because you have created every flesh, every cell of every fiber of my being. So you know how I am. I cant help thinking certain things, feel certain emotions; I cant stop worrying about the future or have those doubtful thoughts, because they are part of my creation from you, Oh my Creator.

and I abide to Your covenant and promise [to honor it] as best I can,

Despite all my weaknesses and limitations, I do whatever I can, however I can. My weaknesses weigh me down, bring me down, but I still try to climb up. They bring me down 3 cubits but I am able to climb back up only 1, before they again pull me down. But still I do it, because that is the best I can, and you know it because you created me and my potential.

I take refuge in You from the evil of which I committed

But I am not proud of my weaknesses. Even though they are part of me and I have no immunity against sinning, I am not proud of them at all. I want to do better so I am asking you to protect me from them.

I acknowledge Your favor upon me

And I am aware of the blessings You shower upon me despite my sins, my mistakes, my weaknesses and limitations. I am aware that you do understand my situation and I thank you for understanding that my sins don’t necessarily make me evil.

and I acknowledge my sin, so forgive me,

So therefore forgive me.”

for verily none can forgive sins except You.

A/N: This is merely a personal reflection and NOT to be referred to as an alternative to scholarly works.

I hope and sincerely pray that this will help open the doors you have been desperately knocking. Please take only the good that you get and leave the rest to collect dust.

Remember me in your prayers as well, that Allah opens my doors that I have been knocking. I could really use your prayers, by the permission of Allah. ❤️

Somehow, Ayatul Qursi speaks to me. I thought I would share how, perhaps it will speak to someone else as well. For whatever its worth, its a little effort I make to be little more optimistic about the future.

Allah, There is no God but He

The Ever Living, The Self Sufficient

Allah is the One who is looking after me, in the subtle most ways. Sure He is taking time to give me what I am asking for, but I am not going to deny every other little duas He is answering for me throughout the day. From his self sufficiency,He is making sure that I am more than self sufficient in every other areas of my life, that I do not have to ask anyone for any help.

Neither drowsiness nor sleep overtakes Him

He does not get tired doing this for me without fail, every day, every night. I fall asleep but He stays up the whole night making sure that I am sleeping well enough, that I am waking up in time for Tahajjud, that the shrill cries of the ugly musical band playing outside is not hampering my sleep, despite me being a light sleeper. And most of all, He is giving me signs throughout the day, tirelessly, with full vigor, that He has NOT abandoned me at all.

To Him belong the skies and the earth

Who can interfere without His permission?

I have my own fears and apprehensions of uncertainties of the future. No matter how much I try to hold onto faith, in the end I am just a mortal. But the truth still remains that when Allah is protecting what is mine, who is going to snatch it away? (I still need to master this one though)

He knows what is before them (people) and what is after them

My words sometimes fail me when I start counting how many ways I have been wronged, harmed, put through things for no fault of mine. But thats okay even if I have lost count, because Allah knows what has happened. More than me, He knows.

And they (humans) do not know anything unless He allows it

He also knows what happens next. I have my own worries that sometimes rob the living out of me, but I wonder if Allah laughs seeing my state, at my craziness. What if Allah is smiling, thinking ” she is so worried about things she doesnt even know about, and here I have prepared so much for her. She knows what happened in her past, but she has no idea how much of a lifetime’s worth of happiness I have kept for her, right after this instance

And His control extends from the skies to the earth

And protecting them does not make Him tired

And no matter how much reality messes itself up, I am the one who guards my slaves’ share of happiness. I am in charge of it, in this world and the next. So what is reality, when I am the ONE who is guarding their affairs?

My co-worker is an elderly Jewish Rabbi. He is very friendly and nice, though I hardly run into him. Today out of nowhere he apprared in my room in the morning, offering me resources from his years of hard work, so it would ease up my workload. I could just use his files instead of making my own. Then later in the day, he got lunch for himself, but because it was too much for him to eat alone he brought them to my room again to share with me. I didnt have my lunch with me, because I already ate it at breakfast, so I could use his food.

Right before I heading home, there were some treats left downstairs by the reception area, “just because”. I grabbed a doughnut as I punched out the clock.

As I walked towards the bus stop, I couldnt help but think how Allah has been doing so much extra for me through this hardship that recently came up on me last week. I have seen parents bring home favorite food when children are sick or upset. But The Lord Of The Skies And The Earth employed people from all walks of life, all different religions into doing these little things for me which He didnt need to, just because. The food or files didnt bring much difference in my day or my mood, I wasnt particularly elated. I kept getting worried and upset about the troubles and problems. But yes, for 2 seconds, just for 2 seconds, they helped shift my focus away and towards the grandeur with which Allah arranged these little somethings to care for me, to look after me. For two seconds it helped me appreciate and contemplate on Allah’s concern and touch. And then the two seconds increased to few more minutes as I decided to pen them down here. This is probably called increase from gratitude. Or may be not. But for whatever its worth, its few minutes worth of sweet nothings, just because!

Sometimes a random baby smiling at you in the elevator is the best thing that happens in that day, and you shouldnt discredit that happy feeling just because you didnt climb Everest that day. The happiness might be as short lived as heartbeat’s worth of time, but you still have to be grateful for it, still have to count is as something, still have to value it as something. You have to be grateful when the scale hasnt moved even though you finished up an entire tub of butter the night before, even though you didnt get caught stiffling that sob and passing it on as another episode of runny nose due to bad weather, you have to count those blessings. Even though you threw up in the middle of the night, the fact that noone heard you- you should be grateful for that. Even though its been hell of a year, the fact that Allah somehow sustains you amidst all these excruciatingly monstrous pains, you should be grateful. You must be grateful, you need to be grateful.

Not being grateful isnt an option because you have to get out of this mess and this is the only way I know how to. Cant feel it? Then fake it, but still do. Inspite of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, please do.

I am one Surah Baqarah month old today, Alhamdulillah. I took up a “Finish Surah Baqarah Twice Every Month” challenge with my friend starting September 1, and I wanted to share some changes this has brought in my life.

To begin with, to my immense surprise instead of every 14 days (my Quran recitation is not the vert best, I am slow) it took my 2-3 days to complete Surah Baqarah. So every 2/3 days I would start over. In fact once I finished within one day only. Its unbelievable how my recitation speed picked up as soon as I made the intention. Alhamdulillah.

I saw a lot of changes in my daily life. All my day-to-day duas started to get answered, the ones like “Oh Allah please dont let their be any queue for coffee, I know I started late but I still want to reach on time, Please wake me up for Tahajjud”- all the daily duas were happening Alhamdulillah. What that did is to a great extent it smoothed out my day to day life, trimming the edges of daily challenges, and made things easily doable. Completing a one hour assignment in 30mins, finding all the relevant information that is needed- soon became a routine. All praise and thanks to Allah.

Some other remarkable changes have happened on the personal forefront as well. Not to mention that the ease in day to day life has tremendously helped me keep up with gratitude- everyday manifesations of tiny little duas filled up my gratitude journal with entries and slowly (still in process) helping my faith muscle to build. The effects of gratitude have then been rippling on to the major duas and the carousel has since then been turning Alhamdulillah.

I am also someone with an extremely restless subconscious mind. Dreaming about everything that I do during the day has been something I have had since I can remember. Moreover, for about a year I have been suffering from nightmares. Even though I do the morning and everning recitations daily, for some reason I didnt really see much results in terms of peaceful sleep. But with recitation of Baqarah, alhamdulillah my subconscious has sobered up tremendously. In the entire month I probably had 3/4 nighmares which is nothing compared to multiple ones every night, and that too they came because I was overthinking from stress.

I read the Baqarah on my tablet. I read it while commuting, during TV commercials, at night as a bedtime read. So I am constantly hooked up to my tablet. After Fajr I try to read atleast 1 verse, because the benefits are more during that time. Allah said if you busy yourself with Quran recitation, He will suffice you in other areas.So sometimes if I am busy, I just read one verse after Fajr (because its already sunrise time by then) and then do my morning adhkars during breakfast. Because I have an extremely busy schedule, its hard for me to take out “quality time” for fancy recitations. I just do whatever, whenever, however I can. And from what I see (and I have always advocated for it), Allah sometimes likes the “crappy/ugly” acts of worship more than the “pretty and prettier” ones. Instead of couning how often I complete the surah or how much I read, I just make sure I read. Quantity is just a number.

For someone like me who has had troubles leading a normal day to day life, Surah Baqarah has helped me significantly in very subtle ways to push through in the past one month. If you want to add Baqarah in your daily life, let me tell you this- the devil will not like it at all. So it will tell you all the reasons it will not work out and how difficult it will be to keep up. Trust me, I know because it took me one month (the whole of August) to convince myself to add this in my life. But let me tell you, even if it seems “difficult”, there is something magical about the way it becomes “effortless”. It just becomes effortless doable to recite it everyday.

Give it a shot!

(For details about the benefits of Surah Baqarah, please go over the sayings of our Prophet pertaining to them, may peace and blessings be upon him).

I was waiting for the bus for a while, but as soon as I made dua it came. Alhamdulillah. My feet were sore so I made another quick dua to Allah to find me a seat inside, so I wont have to stand. When I got in, by force of habit my eyes scanned the single seats and found them occupied, so I resorted to standing with everyone else. But as the bus started moving, I turned and saw one empty seat at the back, staring back at me. Had I looked closer beyond my usual preferred seats, I would have found that Allah did infact answer my dua, I was the one who carelessly jumped into the conclusion that He didnt. I didnt look hard enough.

I started to wonder as I sat down, how many times do we do this with our duas? How many times we are quick enough to jump into the conclusion that our duas didnt get answered just by scanning the surface, carelessly overlooking the details? How much effort do we actually put into looking for our “answered duas”? Do we look enough? Should we search harder? Are we heedlessly dismissing our “already answered duas” just because we havent expanded our intellectual horizons to the possibility of the different ways they can be delivered?Are we really looking meticulously for the delivery of our wishes, wants and needs which we pray for?

Are we truely, sincerely, genuinely looking hard enough?

Something I ask myself first and foremost as I think of this verse from the Quran (3:191).

I remember that Midsummer Night’s Dream. That devastating night, how I struggled to look for a meaning and purpose for it. How it took me so long to even begin to heal. The only good thing in that night was the moon. Other than that, I hated summer, I hated those trees, I hated the greenery. They trees shed their leaves and regained their greeery all within less than a year, while I stood there watching my life only shed everything, not gain. Hated them. The trees gained back leaves faster than mine. They had definite seasons planned, after 6 months they will get their leaves back. They had a calender to look forward to, I didnt. I didnt know when I would also get foliages in my life, and I detested the trees for knowing theirs. The greenery seemed to mock me, my stagnant, poignant story. It was Ramadan, sometime around the last ten nights, the best nights of the year.

I also remember the evening, right after sunset, of one of the best days of the year, towards the end of summer. There was the same moon and those same lush green leaves, about to turn yellow. There was even the same me. But that was it. Nothing else was the same. What I lost that midsummer night turned its way to come back on this late summer night. The tables were turning, and as they did, I sat under those trees and made dua. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the trees started swaying in a breeze so beautiful, so serene, so peaceful, that I couldnt help but fall in love. The air was thick with freshness, dense with purity, an oxygen I never breathed before. A summer I knew before. I never knew the greenery could be good. I never knew Allah brought those greeneries back, nurtured and watered them all summer so when my time comes towards the end, they would join me to thank Allah before they hinernate for the season. So yes, I fell in love.

Fall in love with the subtlety yet the gravity Allah’s grandeur. I was sitting in front of the school playgroung which for some reason I stared at everytime I would cry. I never knew why but for years I had been drawn to the sight of that playground from my window. Now I knew why. Because Allah wanted that location to be the spot when it happens, so He made sure I had a connection with the place from before. My hatred for the summer and trees melted when those very trees joined me to glorify Allah that night. As they started to sway and dance the moment I started making dua, I just knew it wasnt random. It was much more. It was the trees joining me to glorify Allah, just how the birds joined Prophet David, just how Allah says in the Quran that everything in the skies and the earth does tasbih of Allah. Everything has their own way of worship, but it was a different experience when those very trees that bore the brunt of my replusion for years joined me to praise and thank Allah that night.

Allah keeps an account of everything, and incorporates even the minutest insignificant details into our story, because nothing is excess or random, should we pay attention. SubhanAllah, Alhamdulillah, MashaAllah!

Did I mention that just as I was about to publish this post, I looked outside and saw the moon gazing right back at me?